Fundamentals at Work: The Fundamentals of Managing to Performance and Delivery of Real Value During Change [Paperback]

The book holds a mirror in front of managers. The behaviours and way in which they lead (or often not) and how it prevents business from succesfully executing their strategies and the way it impacts business performance. The way in which businesses try to adress this is often just as ineffective. The use of consultants and management techniques often takes place without the fundamentals being in place to make them effective. Hence the only thing that remains are big bills and wasted time and resources. The book describes the fundamental building blocks that need to be in place and the key tactical processes that are needed to come to results and drive real behavioural change. Why do strategies and great initiatives fail? The book describes what really happens in organisations and explains why such behaviours, poor leadership, and the absence of robust management systems, lead to the failure of so many large initiatives and strategies. In raises a number of profound questions about behaviour and holds a mirror in front of managers at every level. The work is based on a large number of practical observations and hundreds of consulting projects around the globe. Why is this happening so often? If the basic building blocks and tactical processes are not in place, businesses do not have the capability to deliver anything more than the results they produced in the past. Basic management information and more importantly, how it is being used to communicate with each other and make decisions are crucial and widely recognised as such. Nevertheless, reality is much harsher than senior managers recognise. What can be done about it? In simple terms do not run before you can walk - put the basics in place before embracing a great new tool or adopting a new strategy that requires a fundamental shift in performance or behaviour. Asking different questions in a different way, using more practical management information are the most potent solutions. How do goals and target get set that have relevance and drive outcome vis-a-vis just activity. How do people really learn to improve, what is the nature of management information that enables them to improve and make decisions in a different way? Managing change, means delivering a business with different behaviours. The book describes the key tactical processes that need to be managed and how management and employees need to be engaged during such processes.

This is a great read for senior executives and consultants:
¨Many of cases and anecdotes
¨A mirror that will enable people to recognise their own behaviours
¨What does leadership, or lack of it, really mean
¨Why strategies and great initiatives fail, not because they are flawed but because they are often build on quicksand
¨Popular management theory is great but the people who practice it usually forget the most basic things
¨Great theories and fad why is their net return so low
¨What inhibits management and what can be done about it
¨What goes wrong during change and restructuring
¨What are the characteristics of great change programs
¨Change programmes need to deliver fundamentally different behaviours
¨Practical solutions – get the basics right first
¨Connecting the activity and the strategy using smart tactics and engagement

Why do strategies and great initiatives fail? The book describes what really happens in organisations and explains why such behaviours, poor leadership, and the absence of robust management systems, lead to the failure of so many large initiatives and strategies. It raises a number of profound questions about behaviour and holds a mirror in front of managers at every level. The work is based on a large number of practical observations and hundreds of consulting projects around the globe. Why is it that corrective actions such as the use of consultants and new management techniques are so often ineffective? If the basic building blocks and tactical processes are not in place, businesses do not have the capability to deliver anything more than the results they produced in the past. Basic management information and more importantly, how it is being used to communicate with each other and make decisions are crucial and widely recognised as such. Nevertheless, reality is much harsher than senior managers recognise. What can be done about it? In simple terms do not run before you can walk – put the basics in place before embracing a great new tool or adopting a new strategy that requires a fundamental shift in performance or behaviour. Asking different questions in a different way, using more practical management information are the most potent solutions. How do goals and target get set that have relevance and drive outcome vis-à-vis just activity. How do people really learn to improve, what is the nature of management information that enables them to improve and make decisions in a different way? Managing change, means delivering a business with different behaviours. The book describes the key tactical processes that need to be managed and how management and employees need to be engaged during such processes.

Having spent his early career with Shell and Sonoco in increasingly heavy operational jobs, Emile Weekers joined Celerant Consulting in the mid-nineties and took responsibility as part of a team for the energy sector of Celerant. With the expansion of a vast international client base, he was exposed to major operational issues across five continents. The down-to-earth approach of Celerant clearly matched Emile’s personality. As one of the senior executives of the firm, Emile played a significant role in making Celerant one of the leaders in implementation across the globe. His approach to organisational issues typifies his personality and background. A deep-rooted respect for others combined with a strong belief that anybody can surpass their own expectations given the right environment, have enabled him – from the position of observer – to write this book. He left Celerant at the tart of 2002 to take a sabbatical, which has given him time to take up writing and prepare his next step: the creation of Performance-Leap B.V., a business recover firm. The uniqueness of Performance-Leap B.V. is that they insert a team instead of one individual to drive fast and deep recovery, their reward is in the form of shares, they use a structured methodology, and the background of its partners enables them to work across Europe.